For years Haiti was the one French island set among Spanish possessions, and the first republic in Latin America to win its independence: on 1 January 1804, after the leadership of Toussaint L'Ouverture.

Twelve years later Simón Bolívar, who had given himself over to the mainland independence war, sailed there to ask for help. In Haiti he met Francisco Xavier Mina, one of the more dynamic figures in Hispanic history and a guerrilla fighter by trade.

Lewis reconstructs that meeting and the events around it, an episode he describes as having remained obscure until now.